Many businesses receive correspondence, such as from customers or vendors, which may contain sensitive data, such as confidential financial information. This correspondence may be stored in computer data files. For example, the stored correspondence may include emails that are stored in email archives or other storage. The stored correspondence may also include documents scanned into a computer system and stored as text or other data files.
The stored correspondence files may be accessible by a large number of people in a data-driven company, such as a bank. Since it is not always known which stored correspondence files contain sensitive information, when they were received or archived, or where they are currently stored, it is difficult to protect the correspondence files that contain sensitive information. The stored correspondence files or other files containing sensitive information may occupy a large amount of space in a computer system. It is time consuming to go through each correspondence file to determine if sensitive information is contained in the file. Other problems exist.